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JOINT STATEMENT – regarding Trinh Xuan Thanh’s kidnapping case.

On July 23rd, 2017, Trinh Xuan Thanh, a former Vietnamese state-owned oil company executive, was kidnapped in Berlin and forced back to Vietnam. Thanh, 51, was elected for parliament in May 2016. But several weeks later, his downfall came when the head of the communist party, Nguyen Phu Trong, ordered an inspection of the accounts of PetroVietnam and announced that 3.3bn Vietnam dong were missing from the company. Thanh escaped from Vietnam, applied for asylum in Germany 10 months ago.

Following this incident, on August 2nd, 2017, an announcement from German Foreign Ministry announced that the kidnapping was carried out by Vietnamese intelligence agents in violation of the German and international law.

The incident causes many serious consequences on the diplomatic and economic relationship between two countries and will damage the image and reputation of the Vietnamese everywhere in the world.

Therefore, we, the Vietnamese people all over the world, would like to make the following statements:

Trinh Xuan Thanh is considered as a corrupt person. We condemn corruption and all corrupt people who have been openly and transparently prosecuted with convincing evidence by a court.

Vietnam is advocating for the establishment of a rule of law state; first and foremost the state must comply with the law, both domestic and international. However, the kidnapping of Trinh Xuan Thanh violates the German and international law.

We strongly condemn this behavior by the Vietnamese government and urge the Vietnamese government to abide by international law, and other countries’ laws and regulations from now on.

We would much appreciate that all other governments speak in support about the matter to ensure that the law is upheld everywhere and create a mechanism to ensure our safety when similar situations occur in the future.

We call on the Vietnamese people from all over the world to unite and preserve our dignity and image.